Toes and soles of feet have an important role to keep stability in standing posture and to perform the bipedal locomotion. The purpose of this study is to develop a toes grasping strength meter, then to examine age-related changes and the relationship between the toes grasping strength and postural control performance. A remodeled Smedley's dynamometer was fixed on a panel and an adjustable ankle holder was set on the panel to measure the toes grasping strength. At first, we examined the reproducibility of the measuring method and the correlation coefficient of two separate measures was 0.973. Then we measured toes grip strength of 97 male and female subjects aged 20 to 84 with the measurement of grip strength, postural sway, foot-balance, functional reach and time of 10m walk. The results showed that the toes grasping strength was related to age and declined by ageing faster than grip strength. The toes grasping strength had significant correlation coefficients with grip strength, foot-balance with eyes open, functional reach and the time of 10m walk but had no correlation with postural sway. It was suggested that the toes grasping strength related to the function of postural control at standing position, especially the tolerance to falling forward, and it can be applied to the prevention of falling accidents of the elderly.

Journal

JES Ergonomics

JES Ergonomics 40(3), 139-147, 2004-06-15

Japan Ergonomics Society

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